Author: Sawyer, Suzana

Source: Social Analysis, Volume 51, Number 2, Summer 2007 , pp. 64-85(22)

Abstract:

This article uses a lawsuit against Chevron as a means to examine the complex, compromised, and incomplete practices that form what can be described as Empire/Multitude and state/civil society. The class-action suit, filed on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorian citizens, encapsulates processes of globalization and their attendant consequences. I argue that the binaries Empire/Multitude and state/civil society assume a physiology of coherence and topography of power that obscure their deeply transnational nature. Systematically exploring the networks of connectivity that produce and transform these dyads allows for a refiguring of indigenous peoples within the political realm. Rather than outside or below, subaltern subjects (indigenous and non-indigenous alike) are co-existing political embodiments that can shape the sphere of authority and legitimacy that make up the state and the practices of Empire.

Keywords: CIVIL SOCIETY; ECUADOR; EMPIRE; LAW; MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION; MULTITUDE; NETWORKS; STATE

DOI: 10.3167/sa.2007.510204

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